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Stoning (Item Power)
| rank = | item = Sword Mace Axe Bow Staff Wand | effect = * Target unit must Resist at or suffer exactly worth of Stoning Damage. * Weapon-triggered Touch Attack. | general = true | availability = Enchant Item Create Artifact Treasure Merchant The Gift }} "Stoning" is an Item Power associated with the . It may be added to Magical Weapons created for Heroes, via either or . It causes attacks made by the weapon to deliver a Stoning Touch Attack. Some of the 250 premade Items possess this power, and these can be found mainly as Treasure during the campaign. Effect Stoning Weapons have imbibed a dissolutus of cockatrices' petrifying venom. This amounts to a timid imitation of an attack by a real cockatrice swarm. Nevertheless, the Weapon has a chance of turning its victims to stone. Example : Malleus is armed with The Ossifier, one of the game's pre-defined Staves with the "Stoning" power. For irony's sake he fires his at a unit of Cockatrices. Because the hero is , the cockatrices will make 1 resistance roll against stoning, at . The on The Ossifier does not affect this attack. If the roll fails, the unit is struck for the max health of one cockatrice figure: . : On the other hand, if the cockatrice unit manages to close in and engage the hero, he has to make 4 resistance rolls— one for each attacking figure. Worse, these are made at , the magnitude of the cockatrices' own Stoning Touch. He will take his entire in damage each time he fails a resist roll. Because a staff's powers do not affect melee combat, he is unable to counter with his own stoning touch in this case. Strategy There are a number of Item Powers that inflict a resist or suffer effect on the Hero's target. This Power, Stoning, save at -1 or be stoned is conspicuously cheaper than the other options, is available through Enchant Item, and still inflicts a . Commendable as this is, none of these powers are as tough as the in-game descriptions seem to advertise, on account of their being Touch Attacks: * Victims of a Touch Attack make 1 resist roll per attacking figure, and Heroes are . * Touch Attacks are designed to scale up with , so individually their effects are paltry. * Dangerous enemies often either have , or something close, remaining after Stoning's resist penalty, or could be immune to stoning altogether. In essence, "Stoning" only gets one chance to succeed per attack, only kills one if it does so, and might not be of much use at all against particularly dangerous creatures. Unlike a straight defense or damage boost, this power requires some reflection about what sort of opponents you expect your Heroes to be facing. At only , and modified by the relevant retorts, though, this Power gives no serious cause for complaint. Compare with Destruction, which affects a larger range of creatures but costs an exorbitant . Other Item Powers that inflict a resist or suffer effect on the Hero's target: Acquisition Create Artifact With , "Stoning" may be added to Magical Weapons of your own design through or . Making strong Items by these means is expensive and time-consuming, but cheaper through the Artificer and Runemaster Retorts. Overland :Main article: Magical Items in Treasure The game data files contain 250 pre-defined Items. Of these, ten possess the "Stoning" power. The power causes a premade Item to demand that the Wizard have particular Spellbooks in order to appear in Treasure, and the requirements are irregular. There are three different ways by which you can acquire one of these pre-defined Items: * By winning a difficult Encounter. * By purchasing it from a Merchant, a random petitioner. * As result of a Random Event called "The Gift". It is often better to acquire items in this way, as it means you do not need to spend any time or to create them. Still, Items found through these means are in no way guaranteed to exactly suit your needs. The table below lists the pre-defined Items with this power. Category:Item Powers